Spice Up Your Meals: Asian Cuisine’s Hot & Spicy Magic (2/7)

Bul-dak, which translates into “ fire-chicken,” is a barbeque chicken dish with hotter-than-hell flavorings that has many Koreans begging for mercy while asking for seconds. During the past year, over a dozen or so different franchises such as Wonjo Buldak, Sinchon Buldak, and Hongcho Buldak, have been popping up all across Korea. “People like it because it’s different, but it’s also well-suited to Korean taste buds,”said Jung Gyu-sam, a director at Hongcho Buldak, the country’s largest and most popular chain with over 150 restaurants that have opened just in the past year. “But eating hot foods is also great way to blow off steam. When it comes to food, Koreans -- with their fondness for an array of spicy kimchi and stews -- are known for their love of fiery foods. But even by their standards, bul-dak is gaining notoriety for a kind of straight-up heat not often found in mainstream, pub food popular among younger crowds. Almost all bul-dak chains claim to use a kind of specially bred green pepper called chung-yang pepper, a more potent variety whose flavor more closely resembles that of Mexican habaneros -- considered one of the hottest in the world -- than Korean-style red chili peppers. While the flavor and degree of hotness differs a little from place to place, all bul-dak is marinated with a hot and sweet sauce, grilled over an open fire, and then served over a sizzling skillet, topped with herbs. An order of bul-dak comes in a platter of bite-sized morsels of chicken breasts, but you can also order wings, drumsticks, and even chicken feet. Most dishes cost around 12,000 won and can be easily shared by two. Bul-dak is an ideal side dish and goes well with cold beer or soju. But if you intend to make a meal of it, always order a bowl of nureungji-tang -- a warm porridge of browned rice and water. Nureungji-tang, which is seldom found outside a Korean mother’s kitchen, fills you up while its mild flavors help soothe a burning palette. Spice up Japanese Cuisine with Wasabi Wasabi (Wasabia japonica syn. Eutrema japonica) is a highly valued plant in Japanese cuisine, used primarily as a condiment for seafood dishes. More recently it has found widespread appeal in western cuisine due to its unique flavor. Used as an ingredient in dressings, dips, sauces and marinades, wasabi is a versatile spice and is rapidly becoming one of the most popular new flavors. Wasabi has a heat component that unlike chili peppers is not long lived on the palate and subsides into an extremely pleasant, mild vegetable taste that even people normally averse to hot food enjoy. Wasabi is a condiment traditionally served with raw fish (sushi and sashimi) and noodle (soba) dishes in Japan. The ground root-like rhizome pungently flavors many foods in Japanese cuisine and its bright green color adds color contrast, for which Japanese dishes are famous. In the last twenty years, because of low supply of fresh Wasabi rhizomes, substitutes made of mixtures of horseradish, mustard and food coloring have taken the place of freshly prepared Wasabi. Other parts of the Wasabi plant are also used. The leaves and petioles are picked or can be powdered for use as wasabi flavoring, used now in many foods. Real wasabi is one of the rarest and most difficult vegetables in the world to grow. Few geographical areas are suited for growing wasabi. In the U.S., however, Florence, Oregon is ideally suited for growing fresh wasabi.